This Beautiful Day

Hello friends! It is beautiful here on my side of the world. It is 59˚F and I can feel fall coming our way! Other than the allergies and the flu that comes with this season, I love it all. I love the pretty colors the leaves turn, and when burn weekends start, the sweet smell of leaves burning is ever so heavenly!!!

We have been very busy the past week. We are still working on our living room makeover, we only need a few things, but our indecision has gotten in the way so now we are kindda stuck waiting for stuff to arrive in the mail. John still hasn't decided on the size baseboards he wants to install while it took me until Sunday to decide that I wanted a fabric-covered cornice for my big window. Our SUV is in the shop being fixed from John's accident a couple of weeks ago so he is now driving a rental. We are just thankful that John didn't get hurt and the guy who rear-ended him had really good insurance coverage, and paid his premium promptly. :)

However, since Monday I have been keeping myself occupied with some baking and cooking to keep from going crazy. John has been loving it! There has been a new treat every time he got home from work.  have made pretty much all his favorites. I made him some divinity, decorated sugar cookies, and fabulous gourmet dinners! But last night, I thought I would make something John and I both loved... Something that had coffee and chocolate in it!!! So I made these things:

I call them coffee cupcakes. The recipe is originally from Ina Garten, but I changed it up a bit and loaded these cupcakes with a ton of coffee! I even used flavoring oils in coffee. I used my favorite Dark Blend K-cup variety from Newman's Own and a good quality epresso granules brand. To make it extra extra special, I took a whole tub of hazel nut spread [I used Nutella] and mixed it with my favorite chocolate buttercream recipe and finished it up with a chocolate-covered espresso beans on top. Oh Yum! I had these with my coffee this morning and oh my golly!!! They are tasty! You can find the recipe in my personal blog, there is a printer-friendly recipe there too so you can try the recipe at home. These cupcakes aren't the kind I would necessarily feed to little kids because of the caffeine content. ;) So keep these treats to yourself, or share it with friends!!!

Have a great day all!!!